A former Boscawen man accused of killing his 3-year-old daughter last March physically abused her for months before her death from massive internal bleeding, prosecutors told a judge Tuesday.
Judge Kristin Spath ruled there was enough evidence to move forward with the murder case against Jocarl Bureau, 22.
Bureau was arrested last month in Manchester and charged with the death of his daughter, Jayleah.
State prosecutors laid out a lengthy case against Bureau at a probable cause hearing in Concord District Court on Tuesday, saying Bureau was the only person who was home baby-sitting Jayleah in Concord on March 15, 2016, the day she died.
Even though Bureau has denied responsibility, saying his daughter died by choking on her breakfast that morning, prosecutors say Facebook messages exchanged between Bureau and Jayleah’s mother, Loreal Williams, show the father had admitted to beating the girl on prior occasions to discipline her.
Furthermore, prosecutors allege Jayleah had told other family members and friends that “Daddy” was the one who gave her bruises after multiple people had asked her about the marks and cuts on her face, legs, stomach and chest.
New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jason Casey declined to comment on whether the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families was involved with the family.
The New Hampshire Medical Examiner determined that Jayleah’s internal bleeding could not have been caused by chest compressions or other efforts to resuscitate her after she choked on food, as her father had claimed, Casey said.
“It’s a blunt-force injury that occurred that morning, several hours before her death, when she was in the care of the defendant,” Casey said. “The defendant was home alone with the victim, when she suffered this medical emergency. He did not call 911. He called seven other phone numbers, except the three that matter.”
Bureau’s defense team argued that there is only circumstantial evidence against him, and not enough to demonstrate that he was the person responsible for his daughter’s death.
“The state wants you to believe that Mr. Bureau is the sole cause of the bruises that might have been on Jayleah and that, therefore, Mr. Bureau has caused the death of his daughter, but the connection is simply not there,” defense attorney Jeremy Clemans said.
Bureau’s case will now move to Merrimack County Superior Court.
While the affidavit in the case against Bureau remains under seal, many new details were revealed Tuesday as attorneys for the prosecution and defense questioned Concord police Detective Wade Brown for more than an hour.
Jayleah died of blunt-force trauma in an Eagle Bluffs condominium in Concord, where she lived with her father and mother, according to investigators.
Neighbors recalled seeing Bureau running out of his house holding Jayleah’s limp body on March 15, crying for help as emergency responders arrived.
But Brown said Bureau never dialed 911 that morning, instead calling Williams at her workplace seven times. When Williams received the messages, she called 911 and asked them to respond to the house.
As first responders arrived on scene and started working on the child, they said Bureau told them his daughter had choked on her eggs and apple juice that morning and did not respond to 20 minutes of chest compressions. However, first responders found nothing blocking the child’s airways, Brown said.
Jayleah was transported to the hospital, but she never regained consciousness.
An autopsy performed a day later showed that Jayleah died from massive internal bleeding, after a vein in her stomach had severed.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy wrote that “it would take a considerable amount of blunt force to cause that injury,” and estimated it had occurred several hours before the child’s death, Brown said.
The toddler’s body was bruised all over, the medical examiner noted in her report. Jayleah had multiple head contusions and bruising around her scalp, cheek, hips, buttocks, wrist and the back of her hands.
Since December 2015, Bureau was Jayleah’s primary caregiver after the family could no longer afford day care. He looked after the child each day while Williams was at work, Brown said.
Williams had first found bruises on the girl in January 2016, when she was giving Jayleah a bath and had confronted Bureau about it over text, according to Brown. Bureau responded, saying the girl accidentally got the bruises from playing with him.
In early March, Williams’s mother and sister noticed Jayleah wincing when she was hugged and saw bruises on her chest, hips and stomach. When asked three times if her father was the one that had done this to her, Jayleah eventually said yes, according to Brown.
When Williams’s mother confronted Williams about the bruising and concerns about Bureau, she said she didn’t believe her boyfriend had done it.
However, Facebook messages between Bureau and Williams show the man had admitted to beating his daughter when she didn’t behave. The messages were obtained by Concord police in the course of their investigation.
On Feb. 4, 2016, Bureau told Williams that Jayleah had been sick, throwing up on their bed and trying to cover it up with a blanket so he wouldn’t spank her, according to transcripts of the messages.
“I whoop her f***ing ass and put her down for a nap, yo,” he messaged Williams. “She just woke up puking all over the couch. I’m so aggravated.”
Williams responded asking if Bureau was feeding their daughter too much and saying he shouldn’t spank her for vomiting because it wasn’t the girl’s fault. He replied he had spanked her because she had gotten vomit on their bed while trying to cover it up rather than telling him.
Bureau then told Williams that Jayleah had a red bite mark from him that she got during play time and a scratch under her eye – specifically telling Williams the marks were not bruises.
“It’s okay, as long as it doesn’t look bad,” Williams responded. “My poor baby has been all marked up lately. I don’t like it, she’s a girl.”
The two had talked about Bureau spanking Jayleah in January as well, with Bureau telling Williams she went too easy on the child.
“When she with me, she chills because she knows if she do something bad, I’ll spank her,” he said, adding, “I’m learning how to be a daddy. I catch myself taking it too far sometimes, but it’s only ’cause I don’t want Jay to grow up like me and make any mistakes.”
(Ella Nilsen can be reached at 369-3322, enilsen@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @ella_nilsen.)